


Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect

by mirawonderfulstar



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-11 18:14:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15977747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirawonderfulstar/pseuds/mirawonderfulstar
Summary: It’s easier to leave than he would have thought, because he’s leaving with Eleanor and the others, but still. Part of him feels curiously fragile as he watches neighborhood 12358W crumble and wink out of existence.A missing scene between 2x10 "Best Self" and 2x11 "Rhonda, Diana, Jake, and Trent".





	Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect

Michael stares out the window long after the last remnants of the neighborhood dissolve into nothingness. It’s curious. He's known this day was going to come since, oh... since he’d first proposed the idea to Shawn, all those years ago. Neighborhood 12358W was never meant to exist indefinitely, but somewhere in there, from reboot to reboot, day to day, he’d come to feel like it would.

It’s easier to leave than he would have thought, because he’s leaving with Eleanor and the others, but still. Part of him feels curiously fragile as he watches neighborhood 12358W crumble and wink out of existence, feels hollow and empty as they speed on through the dark, alone together. A few seats away he can hear Jason chattering inanely away about some video game, and Tahani making sounds that indicate she’s listening without understanding a word. Chidi is up near the engine talking to Janet about the logistics of their current trajectory through the void, asking all sorts of questions that she answers in the short, slightly staccato sentences that only Michael knows means she’s grown weary of the subject but won’t speak up to complain.

And then there’s Eleanor. “Hey, buddy, you sure you’re doing okay with shutting down the neighborhood?” She asks, sliding onto the seat beside him. “You look a little bummed.”

Michael turns to her, adjusting his glasses and staring down his nose at her. She doesn’t flinch, just gives him a sad, understanding little smile.

“The neighborhood is the neighborhood. I could always remake it.” Michael says with a small shrug and a nonchalance he doesn’t feel.

“Nah, you couldn’t.” Eleanor shakes her head. “You could make another one, but it wouldn’t be the same.” He frowns at her, because she’s right, but he’d been trying to be reassuring for her benefit rather than his. He doesn’t want her to worry about him. She gives him another knowing look, then stretches her legs out, resting her feet on the facing seat and leaning her head back, yawing a little, watching him. “So it’s okay if you’re sad about it. I’d be.”

Michael’s doesn’t quite know what he’s supposed to say, so he takes her hand and gives it a small squeeze. She squeezes back.

“Home isn’t something anybody every really explains to you about being human.” Eleanor muses. “I guess because most people just get it.” She looks sad again, wistful. “You can love a place even if it’s crummy, or broken, or full of people you who drive you crazy. And when it’s gone it’s just… gone.”

Eleanor’s never talked about this to him, not really, but he knows the details from her file. Her parents were neglectful, abusive even, and she’d walked out as soon as she’d been old enough to work to support herself. She’d bounced from boyfriend to boyfriend, unsupportive friendship to unsupportive friendship. She’d never really belonged anywhere, and she’d never let herself want to belong. It was what had made her such an attractive focal point around which to build the rest of the neighborhood. He’d built it for her, off her own insecurities and fears and sorrows, and somehow it had become a place where his four humans had bonded and where he had grown to think of himself as one of them, rather than as an outsider and a spectator. His chest aches at the prospect of what lies ahead for them all.

“Come here.” Michael says softly, lifting his arm to make room for Eleanor to move closer, and she does without a second thought, settling against his chest and letting him hold her.

“Demons aren’t really big on the concept of community.” Michael finds himself murmuring.

“You don’t say.” Eleanor responds, a smirk in her voice.

He’s leaning his cheek against her hair. He can feel her breathing gently and he’s struck, suddenly, by how little he’s touched her. In three hundred years he’s held her like this a handful of times at most, and soon he might not ever be able to do so again.

 “What I mean is, before I started this project and met all of you for the first time, I’d never really been a part of something that I really cared about. The neighborhood and you all are the first thing that’s really ever been _mine_.”

“Yeah, dude, I understand.” Eleanor says, her voice a little fuzzy. She seems a few heartbeats away from falling asleep on him, and the idea makes something warm and fierce erupt in his chest.

“You’re probably the only one who really does.” Michael whispers. She hums sleepily, nuzzling against him.

Michael stays awake through the long journey to Bad Place headquarters, watching Chidi tire of interrogating Janet and curling up with his head against one of the windows, watching Jason cover Tahani’s graceful sleeping form in his jacket before stretching out on a seat and going to sleep with his legs sprawled over the armrest and into the aisle. Eleanor is a comforting weight on his chest, solid and real and perfect. He’s going to miss neighborhood 12358W, yes, but he’s going to miss it as a home, as a place where he’s safe and comfortable because the people he loves are safe and comfortable. Amazing how that had happened.

Eleanor sighs in her sleep, and Michael kisses the top of her head. He has no idea what’s coming next, whether they’ll make it through The Bad Place or whether the judge will hear them if they do, but he knows he’s committed himself to these humans and none moreso than the one curled up against him like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Whatever happens, he’s hers now. He smiles softly and closes his eyes. He doesn’t need to sleep, not really, but these last few centuries of being with Eleanor has been the only time in his thousands of years of existence that he’s ever really felt still and silent and comfortable and content and he intends to hold onto that for as long as possible.  

**Author's Note:**

> Title from this song which is a good Michael/Eleanor song if you ask me: https://youtu.be/Sy0NySwzDzY
> 
> I mean... like... “i built this balustrade to keep you home to keep you safe from the outside world”... that’s so good.


End file.
